is a P4 crap or should i stick with this amd 475?

C

czar of bizarre

New member
ok guys heres the deal. a buddy of mine is selling a p4 (1.7ghz) with 256 mb of ddr ram for $200. i checked it out on www.pricewatch.com and i saw similar prices.

he has all the manuals etc etc etc. he placed the mobo/chipset into the tower but decided that he should sell it.

the tower (atx) has like 6 pci slots,a 3.5 (already installed),two spaces for hard drives (i have 2 hd's) and two spaces for my drives (cd rom and cd burner). it also had a 275 watt supply, but i dont want his tower.

i NEED a faster pc and i was wondering if i should upgrade. im going to mix a project and the project has a lot of tracks (more than my 475mhz, 512 mb can handle).

my tower is atx and it has MORE slots than the one he is selling. i figure that i could place the new mobo in my tower,attach the monitor,keyboard,mouse and install my drives (yes they will be reformatted). i want to use a dual boot (98se and XP).

any tips/suggestions/comments/feedback is appreciated.


thanx


czar

ps if rwhite is taking a look at this can you help me out?
 
A P4 would be a major improvement over your AMD 475mhz which I guess is a K6-2 cpu. That type of cpu is great for office applications but not so great for stuff like audio recording.

At this point I'd only like to add that you probably should not look at the size of the ATX tower but at the noise it produces (PSU fan). You would want a pc that is as quiet as possible when you're recording.
 
Oh, one more thing. Make sure that the the P4 is one with a 478 pins socket. If it has a 423 pins socket, I would pass because that is discontinued and would leave you with no upgrade path for the future (in other words: a faster cpu)
 
czar of bizarre said:
ok guys heres the deal. a buddy of mine is selling a p4 (1.7ghz) with 256 mb of ddr ram for $200. i checked it out on www.pricewatch.com and i saw similar prices.

he has all the manuals etc etc etc. he placed the mobo/chipset into the tower but decided that he should sell it.

the tower (atx) has like 6 pci slots,a 3.5 (already installed),two spaces for hard drives (i have 2 hd's) and two spaces for my drives (cd rom and cd burner). it also had a 275 watt supply, but i dont want his tower.

i NEED a faster pc and i was wondering if i should upgrade. im going to mix a project and the project has a lot of tracks (more than my 475mhz, 512 mb can handle).

my tower is atx and it has MORE slots than the one he is selling. i figure that i could place the new mobo in my tower,attach the monitor,keyboard,mouse and install my drives (yes they will be reformatted). i want to use a dual boot (98se and XP).

any tips/suggestions/comments/feedback is appreciated.


thanx


czar

ps if rwhite is taking a look at this can you help me out?
Click to expand...

I believe you have to make sure your power supply has the necessary connectors for a p4 motherboard. I am not sure but I think there is a connector you need on the "p4 ready" power supply that previous ATX supplies don't necessarily have.

OB
 
^^^^^^6 i was going to keep my tower but toss out the mobo AND power supply. i was going to get one that has 400w. will that be ok?


c.o.b

ps thanks christiann
 
OK THE GUY SAID ITS A P4S333 ANYONE EVER HEARD OF THAT (TYPE OF MOBO)?

WHAT ABOUT SIS961PLA5457 (I THINK THATS ON THE CHIP SET)

OK WHATA BOUT MY GRAPHICS CARD? GET A NEW ONE OR USE THE OLD ONE?


C.O.B
 
YOU DON'T HAVE TO YELL.

http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socket478/p4s333/overview.htm
Excellent Brand, good chipset, thumbs up.

About the videocard. Please tell us what kind of videocard it is (chipset). We have got to know something to base our judgement on. But in general you wouldn't have to replace it. A DAW requires very little in that aspect. I've been using an 8 MB Matrox G200 Millenium for years in this computer and it works just fine (1280x960@32bits colours). No complaints whatsoever. Recording audio just isn't about 3D.
 
^^^^HEY MY BAD MAN......everyone on this board knows that i have a CAP problem. im not yelling. i just like to type in caps thats all.

i know im doing music but i wanted to know if what i had now (the graphics card that im using) would be compatible with teh new mobo. i will look at my sepcs and tell you what im using now.

thanks bro

COB
 
Ok, i will step on a soapbox for a second. If you are "throwing" out your mobo and power supply could you not actually throw it out? It has all sorts of poisonous metals and toxins on it, and it harms the water system and ecosystem. And on the other hand, there are a lot of people who don't have computers, so if you can find a school or charity that rebuilds cheap comptuers for people give it to them, they will know how to dispose (read "recycle") of your parts.

If you were planning on doing that then good. I've just been shocked at the number of people throwing PCBs into the trash can. Its like TVs, refrigerators, stereos, and microwaves. They all have a lot of poisons in them. Not good for us to be drinking that.
 
czar of bizarre said:
^^^^HEY MY BAD MAN......everyone on this board knows that i have a CAP problem. im not yelling. i just like to type in caps thats all.

i know im doing music but i wanted to know if what i had now (the graphics card that im using) would be compatible with teh new mobo. i will look at my sepcs and tell you what im using now.

thanks bro

COB
Click to expand...

You're planning on putting the AGP card from your 475MHz computer in the P4? I don't think that will work. It looks like the P4 motherboard only supports AGP 4X cards. You're old card is most likely AGP 2x or even AGP 1x.
It is basically a voltage issue.

(I know you were not really yelling. it just sucks to read text in caps)
 
I agree with pretty much everything said. Big thumbs up on the P4. Asus is a fine brand mobo, my first choice.

I am not familar with the AGP voltage issue Christiaan spoke of, but it sounds plausable. Something to check out for sure. In any case you don't need an awesome 3D video card for a DAW, so if you need a new card it should be cheap.

Since you will have to buy a new power supply, you might want to spend some extra $$$ to get a quiet one, especially if you will be audio recording in the same area the PC will be in.
 
I'll see what I can find on that AGP issue to clarify it.
There must have been somebody out there who have explained it already and better than I can.
 
Ok, I checked it. First it won't (or at least shouldn't) be possible to put an AGP 2X card in a slot that's specifically for AGP 4x because of the shape of the slot. There have been motherboards known to support 1x, 2x and 4x but it looks like that's something of the past.
Secondly AGP 2x videocards run on 3,3 Volts and AGP 4x on 1,5 Volts. There are cases known where P4 motherboards got fried because people managed to put an AGP 2x videocard in there.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1001533218
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top